I got out of the shower, dressed in jeans and a blue tee, my usual outfit, then made my way back to the kitchen. I was just pouring my cup of coffee when the bedroom door creaked open and Slim made a grumbling noise as he got out of her way.
"Hey buddy. Waiting for me?" she asked and I could see her squatting down to rub his big head between her delicate, fine-boned hands. "Hold on, give me a minute," she said, disappearing into the bathroom. I reached into the cabinet for another mug, pulled it down, filled it, and added a touch of cream and one sugar like she had at the brunch place.
An image of her face popped into my mind as I stirred, of her standing out front of the place she and everyone else had always known as the twenty-four hour diner. She had frozen on the spot, her light brown eyes going wide, her full lips parting, her dark brows drawing together. And she had looked completely and utterly... lost.
I'd seen a lot of sad shit in my life, but that definitely took a spot in the top five.
Riya came out a couple minutes later, face shiny like she had washed it, hair tucked behind her ears.
"Oh," she said, stopping short.
"Not expecting to see me, babe?"
"It's early," she said instead, moving to stand on the other side of the counter from me.
I pushed her cup toward her, watching her eye it for a second before taking it. "I've been up for almost two hours," I said with a shrug.
"Oh, you're one of those," she said as she sipped, her eyes going wide. "Has anyone ever told you that your observational skills are almost unsettling?"
"Just about daily," I agreed as I went into the fridge to grab a plastic container of store-bought pre-cut mixed fruits and putting it next to the stove where I put some water on then stirred in oatmeal.
"Are you cooking for me?" she asked suddenly, sounding almost suspicious.
"We need to eat," I said with a shrug as I finished the oatmeal, put it into two bowls, then brought them and the fruit over to the counter. She eyed the oatmeal for a long moment, brows low. "Sugar?" I asked after a minute, figuring that, while healthy, plain steel cut oats were probably an acquired taste.
"Yes, please," she said reaching for a piece of cantaloupe with her fingers and putting it in her mouth, the juice making her lips wet. I had to shove some food in my mouth to keep from giving into a sudden and almost overwhelming urge to go over there and lick that juice off myself.
I handed her the sugar and watched as she put a teaspoon in, mixed, and tried to eat it.
I knew one thing right then; she wasn't lying to me. She hadn't concocted some ridiculous story to get attention or something. I knew this because if Riya Sweeney was incapable of anything, it was acting.
"Go on, put another," I said, pushing the sugar closer to her. "You know you want to."
Given permission to sugar-load her oatmeal, she did. "I don't know how you are eating that plain."
"Babe, spent a good eight years eating MRE meals. This tastes like heaven."
"What are MRE meals?"
"Meals, Ready to Eat," I explained. "Military rations."
"You were in the military?"
I smiled at that. "Didn't do any research before you came to me, huh?"
"I didn't exactly have any way to do research. I was walking back from the hospital and I looked at your building and..."
"Say it was fate and I'll lose all respect for you."
"Alright. It was... serendipitous," she said, smiling a little.
"Sap," I said, tossing a blueberry at her.
She picked it up off the counter and plopped it into my mouth. And, well, her mouth was becoming way too much of a distraction. I turned away from my food and got Slim's breakfast ready.
"So, ah, are we going to go to my old apartment today? I mean, I know you have other cases and..."
"Babe, I said I would take you, so I'm taking you. I do have other cases, but they can wait an hour while we at least try to see if you have some IDs or clothes left behind."
She finished her food and found the shoes from the day before, slipping into them and patting her butt, a habit that likely came from checking to see if her cell was in her pocket there. But she had no pockets and she had no cell. Her hand fell a little self-consciously and she shook her head at herself.
"Ready?" I asked, reaching for Slim's leash.
"You're bringing the dog?"
"Nah. Some days, he lays on the bed and won't move when I leave. Those days, he stays in the apartment. Other days, he's restless. Those days, I take him down to the office so he can follow the guys and Marg around and be spoiled rotten."
"Don't listen," she told Slim, taking the leash from me. "You deserve to get spoiled. You big softie, you."
She let him drag her down the steps, whereas he always heeled for me.
"Slim..." I warned as he tried to drag her around the building.
"He's every bit as strong as he looks," she said, struggling to hold onto the leash.
My hand reached out before she lost it, my hand half-covering hers, the impact of which made her completely stiffen. Her eyes snapped to mine- wide, a little shocked at the contact. "Don't let him have his way, babe," I said when Slim huffed, seeing who was in control of the leash and coming back a few feet. "He will drag your ass clear across town to the dog park if you let him."
"Good to know," she said, yanking her hand out from under mine and curling it into a fist on her side, a gesture I wasn't exactly sure I understood. "I'll wait..." she started to say as I reached for the door to the office.
"Come in. Meet Brock," I said, giving her a smirk. "I'll give you fifty bucks if you bring up the chick throwing him out naked thing," I added, reaching to grab her hand because she seemed like she was stubborn enough to plant her feet and stay outside.
Why I was insisting on bringing her in, yeah, that was a mystery.
"You don't need to..." she objected, trying to pull her hand from mine.
But it was too late, we were inside.
And everyone was standing around.
"Good morning, mijo" Marg greeted me from behind her desk, despite me telling her for years to call me by my name at work.
"Tig," I said, nodding at him as he reached down to pet Slim.
"Sawyer. Pretty girl," he said, giving Riya a smile that she returned easily. He had that effect on women. I swear his goodness seeped out of his pores and women could smell it.
"Hi," she said back, a little shyly, something I hadn't expected.
"And this fuck is Brock," I said, gesturing toward the blond buzzcut guy with the tall, strong, military build. Military build because he had been in the military, with me. There was a lot of shit only the two of us would ever know, missions whose files were heavily redacted in the public record. They didn't call them black ops for nothing.
"Brock, huh," she said, pursing her lips as she did an incredibly slow, almost invasive once-over of him that had a small bit of jealousy well up inside. But that shit was insane so I squashed it right the fuck down. "You know, I think you actually might be able to pull off a maple leaf skirt."
I threw my head back and laughed at that, surprised and pleased that she took me up on the dare. Tig, Brock, and Marg laughed too.
"Smartass," Brock said, offering her his hand. "You must be Riya." He paused, giving her a charming, albeit teasing smile. "Any chance you know the score of the Jets game last week?"
I felt myself stiffen at that until I looked over and saw Riya's mouth part, her eyes dancing for a second before she let out a surprised laugh. "Classy," she said, still smiling big. "Make fun of the girl missing a year," she said, shaking her head at him.
"Alright," I broke in, annoyed for reasons I didn't understand and nodding my head toward Slim. "You guys keep an eye for a bit. I am going to take Riya to see her old landlord, see what we can figure out."
Brock nodded, giving Riya another smile. "See you around, Riya."
Brock, while he still had his dark moments, was a notorious flirt, always gettin
g himself into some situation with women. Normally, it was amusing. But when it came to Riya, I didn't like it. "Ease up," I warned him, giving him a look that he raised a brow and smirked it. If I knew him, and I fucking did, that was his 'game on' look. Should have kept my mouth shut.
"Ready?" I asked Riya who nodded, giving everyone a smile, and following me back outside and around the building to the lot to my SUV. "So this landlord of yours, is he a dick like they tend to be?"
"I really didn't have a lot of interactions with him outside of calling him when some thing or other went wrong in the apartment. But he was always nice and quick to fix whatever it was."
"So not some shitbag slumlord then," I said, nodding. That was somewhat refreshing. It gave a little hope to the idea that he didn't just toss all her stuff in a dumpster and call it a day.
We pulled up in front of her building a couple minutes later. It was a small apartment building with maybe twelve units total. It was kept up well with power-washed green siding and fresh white paint on all of the balconies. It was the kind of apartment that must have cost a fair penny in rent and fees, but made up for it with decent management, a good grounds crew, modern updates, and security measures.
"What'd this place set you back?" I asked, knowing that information was likely in the file Barrett sent over but I wouldn't get around to reading that for a couple hours still.
"I have a one bedroom and it's about eleven-hundred," she said, shrugging the number off. "Had," she corrected, pausing, shaking her head. "I had a one bedroom."
"Come on," I said, putting my hand to her lower back, feeling her start slightly at the contact. "Let's go see if your nice landlord tossed, sold, or stored your shit."
We walked up to the front doors and Riya reached out instinctively to punch the code in, but the door made a beeping noise, indicating the code had changed. "Shit," she said, sighing hard.
"That's what this nifty button is for," I said, stabbing my finger into the one for the super, holding it down until I saw a figure step into the hall, looking out the front door, then moving toward us.
He opened the door with his mouth agape, his brows drawn together. "Two-A!" he declared at Riya.
"Hey Chip," she said, shifting her feet a little uncomfortably.
"What happened to you, girl?" he asked, shaking his head in disbelief. Riya might as well have been a ghost to him. "Five years, never a late payment, never a day missed picking up your mail. Then... nothing. Gone. Off the face of the Earth."
One look at Riya's face showed her eyes a little watery, her lip just on the verge of quivering. "She was in an accident and in a coma," I supplied a little heartlessly, wanting to push the situation along. "She had no family to deal with her shit so bills didn't get paid."
"Oh my God," he said, looking over at me, concern in his light blue eyes. "Wow. I had no idea. I'm so glad you, ah, woke up," he said, looking back at Riya.
"Yeah, real miracle. Now, did you toss her shit?"
Chip snapped back like I had slapped him. "Toss it? No. Of course not."
"Rent out her place like it was furnished?"
"No," he said, getting angry. "I wouldn't do that. I, ah, didn't have enough space here to store it all, so I have some of it in the building's storage unit at the storage place one town over. All the furniture and such. The rest though, the little things, I have all that stored in boxes in the basement."
Well, what do you know, she was right. He was a good guy. I so rarely saw those anymore that it was hard to believe they existed until you saw one face-to-face.
"Can we go take a look?" I asked. "I don't think we'll bring everything with us today, but if we can get some of her basics like clothes back..."
"Of course," he said, moving out of her way. "Thought something awful happened to you," he added as we moved inside and down the hall toward the basement stairs.
She winced at that, having no idea what had happened to her, but likely knowing that whatever it was was likely more awful than wonderful.
"Ah, here. Right over here past the gym equipment that underground fighter left when he ah... died," he said, hedging the whole truth. I figured he either OD'd or died in a fight. "I'll give you a little privacy," he said, backing off a little sheepishly, maybe a little embarrassed that she knew he had been the one to rifle through all of her possessions in the first place.
"Thanks Chip," she said, her voice a little strained, her smile a little forced, but meaning it none the less.
She waited until Chip's feet could be heard on the steps before moving across toward her boxes, squatting down, and pulling the tucked flaps open.
Ten minutes of absolute silence later as she looked through her things, she looked over at me and shook her head. "It's not here."
"What's not?"
"My purse or any of my IDs."
"Birth certificate? Social?" I asked, knowing those two documents meant everything in proving you were an actual person.
She shook her head. "I kept it in a safety deposit at the bank. The bank that I can't get into without a photo ID," she said, hopelessness sinking into her voice. "If I can't get access to my money, I can't get a new apartment. I can't..." she broke off suddenly, turning away from me and taking deep breaths, trying to keep it together.
That was something I found both noble and stupid. In general, I was of the mind that if you felt it, you expressed it. Granted, most of what I felt was a general apathy, cynicism, humor, and a touch of anger. All of which were much easier to express than her clear vulnerability, fear, devastation, and confusion. But I respected that she was trying to not fall apart.
That wasn't something I was used to.
Being in the business I was in, I was bombarded by women in bad spots in their lives. I would push a box of tissues across the desk while they cried so hard their whole bodies shook when I told them their husbands were indeed cheating. Why that was their reaction was completely beyond me. Why the fuck cry over some bastard who didn't have enough respect for you to keep his dick in his pants?
But Riya wasn't one of those women.
Riya had no intentions of falling apart.
Somehow, that determination made me want to assure her that it was okay if she did.
"Riya, look," I said, moving up behind her, putting my hand on her shoulder and squeezing a bit. "It's not the end of the world. We will get your records back and you will get your life back on track."
Her head ducked and she shook it, making her sleek black hair fall down to curtain her face. "I don't know how..."
"You don't need to know how. I know how. So, for right now, let's focus on the good. Your old landlord isn't a shithead. You have a lot of your things back. You have a place to stay. You..."
"You're going to let me stay with you?" she asked, turning, her brows drawn low. "Why?"
Fuck if I knew.
"Because you need a leg up, babe. I might not be the warm and fuzzy type, but I'm not some asshole who tosses a woman out on the street when she has nowhere else to go. You're free to use my guest room until we figure your shit out."
"That's really nice, but..."
"Swallow the pride and accept the help. It doesn't mean you're weak."
"I wasn't thinking I was weak," she said, bristling. She straightened, squared her shoulders, and looked at me with her chin lifted.
I felt my lips tip up, enjoying her snark more than her sadness. "Alright fine. It doesn't make you any less independent," I offered. "So grab what you need and let's get a move on."
She rolled her eyes slightly at that and turned back to her boxes, sifting through and combining things into two respectably sized boxes.
"I could really do without you humming Destiny's Child right now," she snapped after I was halfway through "Independent Women".
"Hey, I'm just trying to improve the morale here," I said, taking a box from her as she shot a look over her shoulder at me and headed for the stairs.
And damn if that look didn't send a spark of desire
through my system as I tried hard as fuck to not watch her ass as she climbed the stairs.
She was a client.
I wasn't going to go there with her.
Case closed.
Or, at least, until the case was closed.
SIX
Riya - 24 hours
After the whole grabbing my stuff thing, I was dropped off at the apartment with orders to stay either inside or inside the office with his people until he got back.
Normally, I would bristle at instructions like that, but fact of the matter was, I had nowhere else to be. So I brewed a pot of coffee and I slowly unloaded all my boxes onto the kitchen counter, sorting them into piles.
I would say it felt good to have my things 'after so long', but to me, it wasn't so long. It was a day. It was a day in my time, but the entire world was a year ahead of me. My belongings were in storage. My bank account was out of reach. I was completely and utterly dependent upon a man I barely knew who both intrigued and annoyed me.
It wasn't that he wasn't a good man; he was. In fact, he was better than most men I had met. He welcomed me into his home indefinitely. He told me to make myself at home. He helped me get my stuff. And he was going to try to get to the bottom of my mystery.
Without asking for anything in return.
Well, eventually, I figured I would have to pay him, but still.
So what if he was a bit inappropriate and a bit callous at times? It didn't make him any less good.
But I mean, he smiled at the wrong times.
He hummed a freaking nineties female empowerment pop tune while I was in a snit. I wasn't sure even if he did it to try to lighten the mood or to further goad me.
There was a sudden banging on the door as I was carrying a pile of my clothes toward the washer/dryer combo I found in a closet in the hall. A surprised yelp escaped me as I dropped the pile of clothes, staring at the door like it might slam inward at any minute.
"Open up, smartass," Brock's voice called through the door, making me take a hesitant step back. I was told to stay in the apartment or the office, but I wasn't given instructions on who was allowed inside the apartment. When I didn't immediately open the door, he called again. "Come on, Riya. I promise to not murder you in horrific ways."
367 Days Page 5